REVIEW: Roky Erickson's rock sizzles in Boston show

Tuesday

Sep 12, 2017 at 4:52 AMSep 12, 2017 at 2:42 PM

jaymiller

Expectations had to be tempered for Roky Erickson's Monday night show at a sold out Brighton Music Hall, for his performances are rare enough, never mind this brief tour of about a dozen stops around the country. Erickson, now 70, was one of the first psychedelic rockers back in the late 1960s, but drug use, legal problems, and several stints in mental hospitals where he received electroshock treatments repeatedly derailed his career.

What a wonderful surprise then, to hear Erickson and his five-man backing band raise the roof in Boston with a sizzling 80-minute show that had the throng of about 400 fans cheering long and loud. Based on those old records from the '60s and '70s, we'd expected to hear Erickson's quirky kind of weird garage-rock, but by the time the band launched into its second song of the night, the hard driving rocker “Sputnik,” we were double-checking the stage to make sure the Foo Fighters hadn't arrived.

Erickson remained seated throughout at center stage, with an electric guitar that he played on probably half the songs. But his voice was strong, and he ripped through the tunes, more than half of which were from his legendary first group, the 13th Floor Elevators, with confidence. One of the band members made between-song announcements and song intros, and Erickson's only real interaction with the crowd was a wide smile, or the lively hand wave at the end of the night.

Another nice surprise was the range of the audience itself, which encompassed all ages. Two younger rock bands, the Death Valley Girls, and the Salem Wolves, opened the show, and perhaps they accounted for some of the twenty-and-thirty-somethings in the throng, but folks from Erickson's generation were not the majority last night. And against all odds, when Erickson and the band, midway through their set, did seven songs in a row from the 13th Floor Elevators, the fans of all stripes reacted with enthusiasm, which is the mark of a real cult hero, since that band was basically finished by 1969.

Erickson, in true '60s counter-culture fashion had dropped out of high school a month shy of graduation when he was ordered to trim his hair. By the end of that year, 1965, the Austin native had formed 13th Floor Elevators with his buddy Tommy Hall, who sought to meld folk and jugband elements into rock by playing his jug through an amplifier, with distortion. There's a rumor that Janis Joplin briefly considered joining the group, before departing for San Francisco. In any event, the band's 1966 debut, “The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators” found an audience with its hip sound and strange effects. There was even a minor hit, with the single “You're Gonna Miss Me,” a lost love song highlighted by Erickson's raw vocal.

There was a second album the next year, but Erickson was already showing signs of instability. The record company conjured up a “Live” album in '68, by adding taped crowd sounds to some leftover studio tracks. By the final 13th Floor Elevators album in '69, both Erickson and Hall had little to do with the band. Erickson had suffered a breakdown in '68, and been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, which was treated by electro-shock. His experimenting with LSD and other mind-altering substances didn't help, and a subsequent arrest for marijuana had him facing serious jail time. Erickson plead insanity, was sent to Austin State Hospital, and promptly escaped. When caught, he was sent to the Rusk State Hospital, where he was again treated with electric shocks, not emerging back into public until 1972.

Erickson's career has been hit or miss ever since, with his 1974 “Bleib Alien” album featuring a harder style, and lyrics about horror movies and science fiction characters. By 1982 he was announcing that his problems stemmed from having a Martian inhabit his body. Nonetheless, fans and fellow musicians continued to try and help him. A 1990 tribute album featured Erickson fans like R.E.M., Z.Z. Top, and Doug Sahm performing covers of his tunes. In 1995, a book of his lyrics was published by rocker Henry Rollins' publishing company, and a 2005 film told the story of his life in moving terms.

In more recent years, one of Erickson's brothers has taken control of his affairs, and he has weaned himself off all medication. Still a big name in Europe, Erickson has played in Europe with the Scottish band Mogwai. He recorded the album “True Love Cast Out All Evil” with the rock band Okkervil River backing him in 2010, and has done a few concerts a year.

Monday's show started with the squalling guitars of “Cold Night for Alligators,” sort of setting the tone for the night's fire. After that marvelously visceral “Sputnik,” matters shifted down a bit for “I Think of Demons,” which a friend likened to 'Texas grunge.' But there was harder, brighter rocking ahead with “Night of the Vampire,” and the crunching “Mine Mine Mind.”

That skein of 13th Floor Elevators' song began, with one of the musicians playing jug, with the roadhouse rocker “Fire Engine,” and then slowed the pace a bit for the spacey guitar tones of “She Lives In a Time of Her Own.” The hypnotic rhythms of “Roller Coaster” had the club jumping, before the band injected an element of funk into the midtempo potboiler “You Tried to Hide.” The old classic “Reverberation” was all swirling crescendos that never seemed to peak, a miasma of torrid guitar effects. “Kingdom of Heaven” seemed more like a slow blues, but the various guitars, including Erickson's, seemed to be playing counter-melodies so that it seemed like multiple storylines going on at once.

Perhaps the closest to '60s pop sounds was “I've Got Levitation,” but even that one had odd guitar lines floating around in the ether. Garage rock was the foundation for “Don't Slander Me,” and there was a sort of harried intensity to “Don't Shake Me, Lucifer.” The regular set ended with the roaring rocker “The Wind and More.”

Erickson and his quintet returned for a three-song encore segment, opening with the thumping guitar squall of “If You Have Ghosts.” The tune “Two-Headed Dog” began with the guitars creating a whinnying effect, like a herd of horses, but soon evolved into some heavy duty low end that Led Zeppelin would've been proud of. And of course the night ended with Erickson and the band tearing through the snarling guitar raveup of “You're Gonna Miss Me,” and it seemed like more than a few of the fans were even singing along.

Roky Erickson may be one of the legendary 'lost rockers' of the 1960s, but Monday night in Boston he proved he's still got an abundance of rock 'n' roll fire to share.